The Protégé of Erasmus and Luther in Heroic Serampore, 1812-1855

Transcription

The Protege of Erasmus and
Luther In Heroic Serampore,
1812..1855
A. CHRISTOPHER SMITH'"
Introduction .'
John C. Marshman (1794-1877) stands out as one of the nineteenth
centurYs most skilled mission historians. He drew high praise from
Bishop Stephen Neil fOl: his two-volume study of Baptist mission
.
based at' Serampore,' B~ngaJ.1'
In his 1859 opus, John Marshman recorded a dramatic assertion
made by the primus inter pares in the renowned mission. We hear
,William Carey confiding to one of his mentors, in 1810, with
. characteristic humility:
.
. "I often compare myself with brethren, particularly... (Joshua)
Marshman and Ward, with whose daily conduct I am best
acquainted. The first of these is all eagerness for the work (of
making Christ known). Often I have, seen him when we have
been walking together, eye a group of persons, exactly as a hawk
looks. on his prey, and go up to them with a resolution to try the
utmost strength of gospel reasons upon them. Often have I known
him engage with such ardour in a dispute with menoflax conduct
or deistical sentiments, and labour the point with them for hours
together without fatigue, nay more eager for the contest when
he left off than when he begun (sic), as has filled me with shame.
. In point of zeal he is a Luther and I am Erasmus. "2
The veteran continued with praise for William Ward's abilities in
witnessing, and concluded about himself: "Reflections such as these
have occasioned, and still do occasion me much distress.»
The Erasmus-Luther formula is important because it typifies.
Carey's understanding of who he and Joshua Marshman were as
personalities. It sheds important historical light, on the Baptist
leaders' work and relations as members of a--close triumvirate. Sucp
voluntary self-identification enables one to take a fresh, contextual
look at the leaders of a prominent pre-Victopan mission. It is a
°Dr. A Christopher Smith is the Director of the Religion Program, Pew Charitable
Trusts, Philadelphia, USA
16
INDIAN JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY
,. useful tool by which to transcend stereotyped interpretations of the
IlTchetypal· Serampore TriO.3
This essay thus is not to be taken as a descent into conjecture;
. rather, it is a serious exploration into a remarkable, uncharted area..
It is an attempt to discover the potential of one of the hermeneutical
keys that unlock the door to further understanding ofthe leaders of
"the Serampore Mission."4
By focussing on the bold declaration of 1810, we also gain new
insight into the character of the principals' primary protege, John C.
Marshman (1794-1877).6 We are thereby introduced to the matrix
and the rllaking of a fine Victorian mission historian. Such study
has not been undertaken before, even though the second -generation
scholar did more than almost anyone else to preserve the pioneers
memory for posterity. To get him in focus, we first take the measure
of his father and his father's long-time partner, both of whom treated
John asa colleague and were later immortalised by him. During our
investigation, we .also render the recognition due to Hamiah
Marshman, John's mother, who had a profound influence on h:er
men-folk and was a pillar of strength that Carey's extended mission
family relied on to a great extent.
To the younger Marshman, historians owe an incalculable debt for
the careful reporting and analysis that he provided ~n the Baptist
mission in Bengal. As a colleague of the pioneers for twenty years
or more, he got closer to the veteran Trio than any oftheir biographers
hllve ever done. Nevertheless, he managed to detach himself in a
judicious ma.nner from pressure to trivialize or to over-popularize
their story. With his journalistic skill and his care for mission, ,he
analysed and preserved a wealth of unparalleled information and
insight.6 His two-volume opus is a fundamental source and reference
work for study of one of the pivotal points of nineteenth century
mission history.
With this in prospect, we turn now to pursue a Baptist Erasmus
and Luther, for whom Britain, Bristol and Bengal functioned like
magnets in mission. Such study will enable us to focus better on
their prime protege, to whose strenuous labors Serampore College
owed its very existence for several decades.
Erasmus. mld the Heroic in Pre-Victoriml Bengal
Time and space do not permit a comparative study of the lives of
the Christian leaders from Northamptonshire and Rotterdam, who
were separated from one another, by a period of 300 years. Our task
is simply to identify what the Dutch Cambridge Don7 and. the
Particular Baptist Orientalist ,had in common, as both served in the
17
THE PROTEG:$ OF ERASMUS AND LUTHER
van of wide-ranging, vernacular, Protestant movement.s Both were
pivotal figures in the Kingdom of God who worked out of an old
"Gospel and culture" paradigm while heralding a new one.9
Carey's Erasmian Sources
First for consideration is the question whether William Carey (17611834) read .any Qf Desiderius Erasmus' works and, if so, which ones.
Although we are still waiting for hard evidence on this particular
point, it is most probable that the young missionary pondered over
the following characterisation of Erasmus (1469-1536) some time
after 1800. Early in 1802 he wrote home that he had just read the
recent work on church history written by Thomas Haweis (17341820). Haweis was a mission historian, an ecumenically-minded
Anglican evangelical and a founding director of "the Missionary
Society" (the LMS, of London).lo
In hisAn Impartial and succinct history of the revival and progress
of the Church of Christ, Haweis briefly set Erasmus in the context
of Europe's Protestant Reformation, thus:
During these commotions, one great character, which all desired
to draw over to their party, conscious of the weight of his
influence, maintained a suspicious neutrality. ERASMUS, whom
the keenness of wit, the acuteness of his genius and the depth
of his learning, raised to the pinnacle of universal admiration,
had, before Lutherarose, begun to sharpen the shafts of ridicule ,
against'the monkish ignorance and abuses; by his writings he
had greatly loosened the shackles of blind veneration for the
mendicant tribes, and prepared men's minds for the ·reformation
(sic). To him, Luther, Melancthon -(sic), and other reformers,
warmly addressed themselves. He answered them with an civility,
but with the most wary caution. not to commit himself as a
favourer of their cause; though he professed to admit the chief
doctrines which they promulgated, and to acknowledge the
necessity of a reform, to which no man had more contributed by
their writings than himself. Yet he dreaded a rupture with the
pontiff; and flattered himself that the object would be
accomplished by the necessity of the case, without violence. He
would have been content with some concessions, and trembled at
the rude hand of the hasty reform.ll
'Reflection on Erasmus of a more personal nature followed:
His study and books delighted him more than the activity of a
. labourer in the vineyard; and his temper indisposed him for the
. stormy ocean, which Luther dared to brave. He professed a high
veneration for the bold Reformer; and though he shunned all
I.
18
intimacy that would have exposed him to reproach, he did not
scruple to condemn the injustice and folly of the treatment which
. Luther had received from Leo; and plainly manifested his apprehensions, that the enmity of the sacerdotal tribe, more than any
real errors of the monk, was the cause of his condemnation. He .
dreaded also, that the precipitation of Luther would bring him
to an untimely end, as it had done so many preceding witnesses
for the truth; and that the consequences would be fatal to the
cause; and probably the cowardice of his ownspiri,t made him
fear to be involved in the dangers which he apprehended (sic).
This ac~ount gradually prepared the way for Haweis' thesis
concerning Erasmus:
He maintained a cautious reserve on the subject of Luther's
writings, and though he condemned the man, because the Church
had condemned him, and censured the violence of his proceedings,.
he declined answering the Reformer, to which he was greatly
urged, and left that honour to the universities, the Dominicans
and Franciscans; pretending unwillingness to rob them of their
glory. In fact, in all essential doctrines, Erasmus was with the
reformers; .saw as clearly the necessity of correcting the abuses
which prevailed· in the church of Rome. But he was a man of
studious turn and timid spirit; and however much his mind inclined
to one side, his dread of consequences bent him as much to the .
other, and kept him suspended between the attracting magnets.
Thus, feared by both parties, cordially loved by neither, suspected
by all, (emphasis mine) he obtained not the favour of Rome, but
was left to languish in indigence; and he shared none of the glory
of reformation, by meanly shrinking from the cross. A great man,
a good mart, an admired man; but not daring to take a decided
part, he remained the victim of his own cautious timidity.12
In this exposition of Erasmus' modus operandi, one encounters
stark in sights that throw into bold relief some of the ~ajor contours
of Carey's character as a missionary. They resonate with so much
that one finds in Carey's voluminous correspondence. However, there
is no space here to dwell on the major points of convergence or on
the few points of possible divergence, suggested by a reading of
Haweis' exposition. Instead, we will let Haweis' analysis function,
pro tem as a backdrop and proceed to look for other means whereby
knowledge of Erasmus might have been transmitted to .the Baptist
mission leader: .
Examination of Carey's 1792 Enquiry reveals a reference to Luther
and other great reformers, but not a word on Erasmus. Carey only
had interest then for those who stood out strongly and openly against
"heathendom." Thus he wrote tersely:
THE PROTEGE OF ERASMUS AND LUTHER
19
In the following century Luther, Calvin, Melancton (sic), Bucer,
Martyr, and many others stood up against all the rest of the
world: they preached, and prayed, and wrote: and nations agreed
one after another to cast off the yoke of popery, and to embrace
the doctrine of the gospe1. 13
As yet, Erasmus had not stood out for Carey. Nor does the young
Baptist pastor appear to' have had any idea that he might one day
engage in Bible translation on a significant scale, in the wake of
Erasmus. Undoubtedly, he had read books on church history by
1790, but which ones we cannot tell. Investigations into some of the
major works that he probably read before he left Britain have so far
revealed nothing significant.14 Not a mention was made of Erasmus
in Andrew Fuller's writings. Only once did Jonathan Edwards refer
tangentially to Erasmus in any of his major works,15 while John
Gillies Historical Collection (1754) and Robert Millar's (1723) The
history of the propagation of Christianity, and overthrow of paganism
had virtually nothing to say about Erasmus. 16
However, the. c01'!fident reference that Carey made to Erasmus in
1810 reveals more than the superficial familiarity with his life and
~ork, and suggests that Carey may have become acquainted with
some of the Erasmian corpus before 1810. 17 The Serampore pioneer's
ipsissima verba are remarkably pregnant with meaning. Their
internal implications must be unravelled, even iffurther research
remains to be done for more specific circumstantial evidence. If only
we could tell what reference Carey made to Erasmus during the
"short course... On the history of the Christian Church" that he .
provided at Serampore College twenty years laterP8
Personality, Piety and 'the Heroic'
In spite of the lack of more, precise external evidence, one needs
to take cogilizance of the comparisons that have been drawn
between the two leaders. An early stab at this was taken by George
Smith, a Victorian biographer twenty years after John Marshman, who viewed E'1:asmus as one of the Carey's predecessors, though
without availing himself ofthe 1810 dictum. He wrote for a popular
audience:
Erasmus comes first, the bright scholar of compromise who in
1516 gave the New Testament again to Europe, as three centuries
after Carey gave it to all Southern Asia, and whose missionary
treatise, Ecclesiastes, in 1535 anticipated, theoretically at least,
Carey's Enquiry by two centuries and a half. The missionary
dream of this escaped 'monk of Rotterdam and Basel, who' taught
women, and weavers and cobblers to read the Scriptures, and
20
prayed that these might be translated into all languages, was
realised ... 19
More recently, Timothy George, a historian of the European
Protestant Reformation, judged that Serampore's translation
achievements placed Carey "in the front ranks of Bible translators
in Christian history alongside Jerome, Wycliffe, Lut1'ter, Tyndale,
and Erasmus."2()· However, it is not in the area of Bible translation,
. nor in their work as grammarians - or as revivers of classical '
literature - that the most illuminating comparisons may be
discerned between the principals of this study. Rather, it was in the
broad sphere of pro-active witness, or "zeal," that Carey made his
point.
N one of Carey's biographers have consideted what he may. have
found in: Erasmus' Eiwhiridion Militis Christiani, or Handbook of
the Christian Knight. 21 The more personal allusions in the 1810
dictum have not yet been explored.' Yet these deserve to be taken
seriously because there are aspects of piety and elements of "the
heroic" in the Enchiridion that mirror Carey's personal make-up and
mission legacy.22 This is not unimportant if one takes into account
the debt that Europe's Anabaptists owed to Erasmus.23
A particularly suggestive cameo has, come from the pen of the
historian, David Heim. In words evocative of figures like Carey, he
wrote:
The patron saint of the heroic might be Erasmu,s of Rotterdam,
whose Enchiridion militis Christiani, published in 1503, was a
manual for a new kind of Christian knight. This kind of hero
displays, no spectacular powers but does teach the ignorant, lift
up the fallen and comfort the unhappy; he rescues no beleaguered
maidens hut remains loyal to spouse and children. The Christian
soldier engages in an inner struggle to control envy, greed, lust
and wrath .... , (Erasmus') valiant knight- humble, loving,
practical, studious, peaceful-looked more like an antihero to
Erasmus' contemporaries than a hero. But the portrait limned
in the Enchiridion provides us today with the sort of preliminary
sketch we need as we begin to consider the meaning of the
heroic in this age of the death of heroes.24
So who was Erasmus?
Scholars have depicted him as "the archetype of the sixteenth
century intellectual"- one born in obscurity who rose to undisputed heights by means of his publications. But c~m something similar not.
be applied to Carey also, even if on a more modest scale?25 The former
shone in Renaissance Europe while the other contributed to the
renaissance of Bengali culture. Both were committed Christendom,
THE PROTEGE OF ERASMUS
ANI?
LUTHER
21
both lived in a period of crisis in Europe, both benefited from English
patronage, both were "preoccupied with the humanist dream of a
new and better education" based on classical texts, both exprimented
with educational methods, both became professors, both. produced
textbooks for their students, both wrote Colloquies (popular collections
of dialogues), both challenged the low level Christian morals in their .
day, both contributed to the social reform, both were hopeful for the
future and both died in very discouraging circumstances. (1536 and
1834).26
Studies on Erasmus, the great European, are far more advanced
than those on Carey, the missionary professor. The former has often
been celebrated as the leading moderate of Europe's Reformation
who "generally preferred compromise and scholarly dialogue to revolt
and public debate."27 He was a scholar who "lacked robustness and
preferred to avoid conflict... " so unlike the German luther.28 In terms
of modus vivendi the friendly, eirenic Dutchman and. Englishman
had so' much in common, regardless of the differences in their
circumstances29 , and it is with them as counterpoint that we are
well placed to understand Serampore's Luther- Joshua Marshman. 30
A Valiant 'Lutheran' Knight in Pre-Victorian Bengal
, It is true that William Carey and his Baptist colleagues hoped
that the Protestant missionary awakening, of their day would prove
. to be "the first wave of new Reformation."31 As regular preachers in
the Danish colony's Lutheran Church, courtesy of Serampore's Dalush
governor, they appealed repeatedly to the example of Luther and
the Reformers as a model for their own Christian work. As Timothy
George has noted, they understood their work in "e.xposing the 'errors
of the Hindu system with its exalted priestly caste of Brahmins" as
something akin to Luther's "thundering addresses against the idle,
corrupt, and ignorant clergy of the Church of Rome at the
commencement of the Reformation." Their continued presence in
Bengal evoked memories of the protection that the territorial prince~
Frederick, the Wise of Saxony, afforded Luther' in the face of the
German Emperor Charles V and the so-called Holy Roman Empire.
For was not. the Dissenters' survival (in British-occupied India
primarily due to special favor from Danish authorities who held. out '
in their tiny enclave against imperialist Anglo pressiJ,re?
More specifically, Carey saw much of Martin LutheT-'- at least a
Luther-like personality- in Joshua Marshman. 'this became
particularly evident whenever the Serampore mission was challenged
to "contend earnestly for the faith' once delivered to the saints."
Marshman was ever ready t.o contend in theological, institutional
22
INDIAN .JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY
and political defense of Christianity and Baptist mission work in
Bengal. Thus the 1810 dictum typified Carey as the dove and Jos~ua
Marshman as the hawk of the Serampore band.32 It conjured up the
picture of a scholarly Erasmus over against a blunt and dogmatic
Luther- of a detached,eirenic scholar over against a combative and
aggressive reformer- of a conciliatory evangelical over against a
fiery theological deb'ater. 33 Never was that clearer than ~hen the
Serampore Baptists felt threatened by Raja Ram Mohan Roy and
the Abbe J.A Dubois in India. M Thus it was not for nothing that
Marshman, rather than Carey, became the lightning rod for clashes
between ~e senior and-junior mIssionaries in the 1810s and between
the BMS and the, Serampore Mission in the 1820's.35 Indeed, his
bosom friend, William Ward, was so bold as to observe as early as
1805: "Bro. Marshman is a most important acquisition and a good
help to the Mission ... in his ardent zeal. But he is too volatile, and
has tol;) much quicksi1ve~ in him."36
In all probability, Marshman took a heavy~duty literary skirmishing
by default: in view of his fear that Carey could not be counted on to
take the lead-and perhaps could not afford to doso. 37 Thus it looked
at times as if the very future of God's work depended onSerampore's
champion. Thus Carey observed in 1810' "Marshman would "try the'
utmost strength of Gospel reasons" upon non-believers," engaging
"with... ardour in a dispute with men of lax conduct or deistical
sentiment," laboring the point with them "for hours_together without
fatigue." Clearly, this was not something that a quiet plodder was
cut out for. Oniy a rugged individual with an iron constitution could
be so insistent, yea, "instant in s~ason and out of season."
But how effective was such righteous contention? Did Marshman
not need to pause for thought and imbibe some of the spirit of
Carey, the peace-loving, principled, ecumenical pragmatist, who
resonated with Erasmus' words-fiLet it not be profitable or helping
for ye disputacy on in diuynite (i.e., divinity) so it make for a diuyne
lyfe" which might be paraphrased thus: "Rather than promoting ,
theological disputation, let our work contribute to holy living. "38
In the light of that, it may be said that William Ward resembled
Carey more than Marshman. We find Ward writing to Fuller in
1803: "I dislike defending the truth in a controversial way."39 Fuller
replied,in a similar vein in 1804. Referring to John Ryland (Jr.), the
Principal of the Bristol Baptist Academy, as "one of the most p'acific
of men," Fuller observed that he himself sometimes came over as "a
man with a sledge-hammer in my hand."40 From what'we know of
Marshman's clashes with Ryland after 1816, all this would suggest
that Fuller was, by nature, temperamentally more like Marshman
while Ryland and Ward were more like Carey, though it should be
,
,
I
23
added that Fuller had more of Ward's judicious nature than
Marshman did. 41
In the ways of Providence, however Christi~ pugilists, or defenders
of the faith sometimes are obliged to retreat from the public fray for
extended periods of time. Thus we find that both Marshman and
Luther,spent a significant period of their lives in seclusiontranslating the Word of God into the vemacular.42 Luther produced
his Bible while secluded in the Wartburg (1521-1522), while
Marshman did his in the sanctuary Qf Serampore, albeit thousands
of miles away form his target in China!
Ever eager to "take all Asia for Christ," Marshman undertook the
huge task of Bible translation into the language of a country that he
never visited. Fourteen years were devoted to' translating the Bible
into Chinese, translating the Works of Confucius (1809), producing
"a dissertation" on Chinese phonology (1809) and a Chinese grammar,
Clavis Sinica (1814). But this work unfortunately turned out to have
been rather futile, for a variety of reasons that none less thanhis
devoted son, John Andrew Fuller, and his close colleague, William
Ward, admitted quite openly.43 In Marshman's case, enthusiasm,
,dogged determination and hard work, very much needed to be
tempered by judicious, collective decision'-making. He should not
have expected to achieve much by translating the Bible .into a
language in which he had 'never been immersed-in contrast to the
experience of his contemporary, Robert Morrison." Thus he never
achieved anything like the success that Luther did into his own
European mother tongue. Marshman aimed high, but his translation
was of a different order from Luther's, which Thomas Haweis
recorded, "circulated like the sun, through Germany, and cast a
flood oflight upon the benighted minds of men. 46" Perhaps it was
left to Carey to do for an Asian language something similar to what
Luther did for German.
But Marshman was valuable. Carey could not have done without
him. Even though they had "widely differing temperaments and
priorities," they never fell out together as Erasmus and Luther did. 46
The Serampore veterans held so much in common in terms of mission
goals, and needed each other so much in the face of mountains of
work and severe opposition, that they remained true to each other,
regardless of their personal differences. Thus Carey could confess to
his British brethren on several occasions between 1811 and 1818,
against the junior missio~aries' caricaturing of Marshman: "he is
naturally a little tortuous, but... a more excellent and holy man does
not exist in the Mission." And again, alt.hough
"I believe a certain kind of crooked policy is natural to him ...
Bro. M's excellencies are such that his defects are almost
24
concealed by them, and I believe him to be one of the finest
friends that the Mission ever had ... "
That is why Ca.rey prayed that "the Mission may never stand in
want of one like him."47
The Marshman Family
Thirty-four years at Serampore demonstrated that Marshman could
not have asked for a. truer friend. Nor could he have prayed for a
wife more dedicated and indefatigable in mission than Hannah, nee
Shepherd, who was born in South West England in 1767. Of her it
was reported in 1826 by a Serampore rnissioner, perhaps her son
John: "It grieves us to the heart to see that Mrs. Mar~hman, now
approaching sixty, should be required (by the mission's "pecuniary
embarrassments") to toil as severely as ever, to contribute to the
support of the mission."48
During the 1830s, William Carey was referred to as "the father of
the Serampore Mission." But it would be churlish to forget that
there were also grandfathers and uncles, and faithful children. Yea
more. For honour is due to the memory of "the mother of the
Serampore mission," Hannah Marshman.
.
Born in Bristol, England, she became a Baptist, married Joshua
Marshman and then took her husband.in hand. She urged'him to
develop proficiency as a school teacher and preacher, instead of
emigrating to America. Under the auspices of the BMS~ they
arri;ved in Bengal in 1799 with their young son, John. Ever
resourceful, she promptly set up a residential school for AnghIndians to contribute to the financial welfare for the extended
Serampore missionar)amily. A sturdy pillar of support to her fantAly
of six, to William Carey's turbulen.t family, to a series of missionary
widows and to many orphans (both native and missionary), she
managed scores' of do~estic servants from many castes, organised
elementary schools for native girls and ran a girls' boarding
school. She served for forty-seven years in Bengal and outlasted
the first generation of Baptist missionaries to I~dia, dying at the
age of eighty;49 An unsung heroine, she never was appointed or
formally recognised by the BMS as one of its missionaries. 5o Yet it
is almost inconceivable that the Serampore mission could have
survived during Carey's lifetime without her ministry and the
hlilrculean contributions.
Without a doubt, Hannah Marshman had a profound influence on
her men-folk, spurring them on to be achievers. Yet she also did
something to restrain Joshua from his tendency to go to extremes.
John owed his scholarly formation to her. As her husband's bosom
THE PROTEGE OF ERASMUS AND LU'rHER
25 '
friend, WiUiam Ward; the observant journalist recorded in 1805: "in
most family things (Joshua Marshman) is ruled by his wife."Iil This
we must take into account as we reflect further in the nature of
Marshman senior's "zeal."
Carey once tried to explain how Joshua's conduct of day-to-day
business resulted in strained relationships at Serampore, particularly
involving the "junior" BMS mission personnel. In a letter to Ryland,
Fullers part-time successor as BMS sect:etary, he identified the piece
de resistance:
I believe his natural make is the occasion of it. He is a man whose
whole heart is in the mission, and who may be considered as the
soul and life of it (eniphasis mine). He is ardent, nay sanguine,
exceedingly tenacious of any idea which strikes him as right or
important. His labours are excessive, his body scarcely susceptible
of fatigue, his religious feelings strong, his jealousy for God great;
his regard for feelings of others very ,little when the cause of God is
'-in question. His memory is uncommonly retentive; ... in short, his
activity reproaches the indolence of some, his aequirements reproach
, their ignorance, and his unaccomodating mind frequently excites
sentiments of resentment and dislike. He has &180, perhaps, the
foible of dragging himself and his children more' into public
conversation than is desirable. "52
Clearly, Carey was under no allusions. In 1814, he reported to
Fuller that Marshman was fiercely protective of his children. 53 Four
years later, he recorded that Marshman had been attacked by young ,.
BMS missionaries for working to get his son accepted as a member
of the Serampore Mission.54 The Marshman family was criticized by
the second generation of BMS appointees for its ambitious designs
in the interest of its own enhancement by means of the Serampore
Mission and'its grand college. 55 However, Carey had no time for cheap
attempts to vilify his veteran partner. He concurred with the sturdy,
rebuttals that John provided in a parallel attempt to set the record
straight.
John Clarke Marshman (1794-1877) and British India
In the midst of these circumstances, John Marshman grew to
become a prQb~ge, an employee, a colleague, a pamphleteer and an
administrator at Serampore. 56 In the process, he made decisions
that shaped his development as a lay missionary and led him to a
career in journalism, education and business-mostly in British
India. Quite deliberately, he did not become an ordained minister
or a BMS missionary. So who was he, and what did he make of
life?
.26
Successor to the Serampore Trio
His very name poses questions. Where did it come from? Was it
from his mother's grandfather, Rev. John Clarke, and his paternal
grandfather, John Marshman?S7 Could it have been in honour of Dr.
John Clarke, as a hero and forebearerofthe Serampore Marshmans?
Indeed, did it derive from them all? If so, it would locate him strongly
in British Puritan tradition: ~. tradition that he was to grow out of.
John Clarke (1609-1679) was an English Puritan physician who'
crossed the Atlantic and made his way to Rhode Island. There, with
the help of (the Puritan, part-time Baptist) Roger Williams, he
purchased land from the Indians. Between 1640 and 1644, Clarke
became the first full time Baptist to plant a church in the USA &8
Williarns came to be known as "the father of religious liberty in
America" while Clarke is remembered for enabling the Rhode Island
Colony to obtain its charter from Charles 11 (in 1663). With Rhode
Island, British Baptists in Bristol developed close ties one hundred
years later. Not by coincidence, both Carey and Marshman received
D.D.s from its Brown University, in Providence. 59
.
Joshua and Hannah Marshman's eldest" son thus started life in
one of the Britain's largest international ports. trntil the t 790s,
Bristol had grown rich from supplying the West Indies and "Her
Majesty's. plantations in America" with large number of African
slaves. At the'same time, it was a centre from which theological
educated young men sailed overseas on mission, some of whom were
, - ardent opponents of the trade in human beings. 60 The Marshmans,
however did not consider themselves cut out for involvement ~n the
abolitionist cause. Their calling turned out to be a minister in the
very different world of Sout't Asia.
After John arrived in Ser~mpore at the age of five, he was provided
with an education by his mother and her assistants in their school
for English-speaking children. He must have been a bright child,
given the fact that he went on to develop reading proficiency in
Chinese, Greek,· Latin and French and learned to speak "the
Hindosthanee and Bengalee fluently."6l. This no doubt reflected the
pioneer missionaries' concern to turn thelr children into potential
mission recruits, with superior linguistic'skills.62 He evidently had
a fairly spartan upbringing in keeping with his parents' 'frugality
for th.e sake of mission'. But that was more than offset by the
stimulating, cosmopolitan, educational environment of Serampore.63 ..
This leads one to ask whether or not the younger Marshman was
groomed for special service by the Baptist mission pioneers. To this
question, an initial answer might be that his father at least treated
him as his protege, and that William Ward tended to view him as
an under-study. One also observes that the Trio increasingly turned
· THE PROTEGE OF ERASMUS AND LUTHER
27
to him as a loyal subordinate, in the 1810s, and induced him to
assume responsibility for various facets of their mission, including
their college after 1818. With the passage of time-especial1y while.
Ward was on furlough and after his decease-the veterans found it
increasingly difficult to depend on the services of most other secondgeneration mission personnel. So John was valued as a reliable
associate, even though his spiritual formation was rather slow,
uneven or circumscribed by some dissenting standards.
The next question focuses on the way in which the Serampore
triumvirate brought John forward, while declining to take slightly
older ordained BMS missionaries into their confidence. Was the
veterans' approach out of order? Did 'elements of nepotism come into
play, or not?
Here, there is no easy answer. What we clm do is to take the
Marshman .family's experience into consideration and then pay
particular attention to the pamphlet war in which the Marshman
men and their (some-time-missionary) opponents engaged between .
1828 and 1831. The latter literature provides us with a broad' aTray
of noteworthy evidence in the midst of serious allegations and
rebuttals.'
.
The saga began while John was still a teenager. We are informed
that in 1812 junior BMS personnel in Bengal were already protesting
at the way in which he was receiving preferential treatment-as if
he were 'the heir apparent' at Serampore.64 WilliamJones, Joshua
Marshman's y~)Ung nemesis, recorded:
Our complaint arose out of the fact, that the letters on general
missionary business, were received, opened and read by John
Marshman, or handed over to him to read, whilst Lawson and
myself were sitting with him and Mr. Ward, a circumstance of
frequent occurrence. This young man, then only eighteen,
attended to them as a Pllrtner in a commercial concern would
do, without any reference whatever being made to us directly, or
indirectly."
William Carey's nephew, Eustace, felt put out, and declared in 1831:
We have never entertained! any feeling against him of the
slightest personal hostility. When we knew him at Serampore,
in 1816, we regarded his as a pleasant, worldly young gentleman,
who was much at home in modern history and European politics,
and possessed many of those agreeable qualities which facilitate
introduction to general society.... He had also cOI1~iderable talent
for business. Yet we entertained no idea that he was a proper
person to become a member of a Missionary body..•
Dr. Carey expressed to me while I was living at Serampore his
anxiety that Mr. John Marshman should not come into the
28
direction of the Mission, and (assured me that he concurred ir.
voting him a salary, from the persuasion that his becoming a "
stipendiary would disqualify him for being a principal: though I
expressed a: different opinion as to the probable effect· of that
arrangement. 66
Johns believed that he saw something ominous at play. He
commented rather sourly:
.. ;John M., an interesting youth of eighteen (1812-13), was the
favoured individual, to whom his father and mother looked,to
do more than all the European brethren put together, and, I
suppose, to take the entire charge, when Carey and Marshman, '
as well as Ward, shall be gathered ,tQ their fathers.
.
The proud young English surgeon then quoted remarKs that Joshua
Marshnian made in a written defence of his eldest son in 1828:
(John) early discovered the same devotedness to. the cause which
he saw actuating the mind of his mothet. His attachment to Mr.
Ward was so great, that he spent more hours With him in a day
than he did with me (his father) in a week. His intimacy with
him (Ward), and his strong affection for Dr. Carey, combined
with the example of his mother, and his own love to the mission,
interested and enlarged his mind at an early period. At the' age
of seventeen, ... he rejected the prospects of entering law, and
declared that he should feel happier in supporting that cause for
which they laboured, than in amassing wealth for him self. 67
However, Johns took issue with the veracity of this assertipn,
declaring:
As I have no controversy with Mr. John Marshman, I shall not
make any remarks, as to what I know of his opinIons and feelings,
a year afterwards. I shall not hesitate to say, however, Dr. M.
has here stated what he wished, rather than what was strictly
borne out by facts. Dr. M. has thus introduced his son, for a
special purpose, it answered mine as well: to me it isa
corroboration of what I had for years prognosticated, that he
was the destined heir.- DR. M. says, 'it was full seven years
before he was formally elected a member of our union' (emphases
mine). 68
Johns was chagrined at the favour bestowed on the junior
Marshman, supposedly at the expense of the young BMS personnel.
Yet the disappointed surgeon's account does have value as being the '
public testimony of an informed critic who had first-hand knowledge
of the Serampore Misslu ••. Ha continued, albeit in a tone that smacked
somewhat of 'sour grapes':
'" the time' arrived when Mr. John M. was baptized; and in
1818, (I apprehend it was,) was solemnly inaugurated; in other
29
words, 'formally elected a member of the union.' His various
efficient services, 'even from the age of fourteen' (1808), are
amply detailed in Dr. M.'s Statement.- And it is not to be
wondered at therefore, that he is now the prime, if not sole,
mover of the vast machinery in tpe mission establishment, and
in the Coliege at Serampore.... When Ward died, there was the
same person to fill his place;- and he has for the above two
years superseded his father, who, at the present moment, is
occupied in a distant part of the world (Britain), as a sublieutenant on ly. 69
In contrast to John's fulminations,William Ward's observation of
John Marshman around the age of 22 (in 1817) merits consideration.
This provided a much more upbeat reading of the young man. Ward
wrote to Fuller's success9r in the BMS Committee:
(He) has devoted himself to the business of the Mission for several
years with unremitted ardour day and night. ... He is full of
ardour in forming plans for the extension of the cause, and is
resolved to devote himself to the Mission for life. I cannot doubt
of his _piety, tho' he is not yet baptized.... This young man is
rigidly sober and chaste, and has a high sense of honour; ...
Should God deepen the work of grace in his soul, and keep him
from the evil, I think there is hardly a young man on earth
likely to do more good... than he is... 70
All of which suggests that the young Marshman had real
potential- even some -portion of his father's zeal- and that his
detractors did not have all truth on' their side. But let us allow him
to defend himself and his parents from the attacks made by Johns,
Eustace Carey and William Yates. 71
In 1830, as the contention between Joshua Marshman and his
opponents rumbled wearily on, John Marshman sought to dispel the
charge that he had happily consented to be the administrative "heir"
of the Serampore Trio.. He wrote:
.
I had, it was true, been employed for seven years in various
inferior departments, and had served such an apprenticeship as
few of the society's frniRsionaries would have submitted to; but
nothing had been determined concerning my destiny. Knowing
the sentiments entertained of me by Mr. E. Carey, Mr. Yates,
and Mr. Pearce, I rather repelled than courted the idea of being
placed in a situation exposed to their attacks; and had made up
my mind to embark for England at the close of 1818, and to
apply (myself) to the study of the law. In September of that
year, Mr. Ward's complaint threatened his life; and a consultation
of physicians was held, who declared that there remained no
prospect of his recovery, but from a voyage to Europe. After the
30
consultation, he wrote me a letter... in which he entreated l~,e to
remain and occupy his place for eighteen months, promising to
return in that time; and adding, that unless I consented to his
proposal, he must continue in India, and die. To this I very
reluctantly consented; and, with the full concurrence of his two
colleagues, was admitted into the union.72·
1818 thus proved to be a turning point in the role he played at
Serampore. Several years later, he visited the BMS Committee in
, London and undertook various diplomatic assignments on behalf of
the Trio. After Ward's death, he penned many letters to the BMS
which Carey co-signed. During his father's absence in the mid 1820s,
he was the chief administrator for the Serampore Mission. This
paved the way for his assumption of joint managerial responsibility
for the costly college, along with John Mack after 1837- when the
Serampore Mission ceased to eXist. Mack died several years later,
leaving it to John Marshman to assume total responsibility for the
college- with his mother's support until 1847. After that~ he 'had to
battle all alone for eight years until an amicabYe settlement could be
.
reached with the BMS for the college's future.
C
The Mission of an. Extraordinary Layman
It is now to take the measure of John Clarke Marshman, both as
a person and as a promoter of Christian enlightenment in British
India.
Temperamentally, he probably contrasted more strongly with his
father than with -his mother. More judicious
than his sanguine father,
/'
he was more like William Ward as a person than any other member
of the veteran troika. As ,his father poted, John spent much more
time as a teenager with Ward than any other adult. "Ardour" John
may have had for sometime, but it was only reluctantly that he
consented as a young man to throw in his lot at Serampore, rather
than pursuing a more secular career. He spent many years working
. in Serampore's printing and publishing press. Never conspicuous for
evangelistic zeal, he decided not to be baptized until he was 24
years old- which may help to account in part for the resentment
expressed by young BMS personnel who believed that they had been
passed over by his promotors.73
So he was no puritan, nor he a neo-puritan. Loyalty was his
- watchword. Christendom was his preferred environment. During
the 1820s, he gradually distanced himself from the pious mission
fervor that characterised Serampore in the 1800s and 1810s. In
contrast to his father, about w'}\om Ward wrote in 1805. "about
business he has no settled recollection," John developed significant
31
. administrative abilities and got involved in secular activities wherever
he could. 7' In short, he was a layman who was,committed to education
and journalism, who performed yeoman work in mission business in
North India.76
He was neither a transitional figure nor a missionary in the way
that his mentors were. Rather, he was abi-cultural layman who
became a Victorian Christian businessman. En route, he made
. significant literary and educational contributions to the British Raj.
While ~ohn was still a young adult, William Ward summarized his
services to Sera,mpore thus:
To him the benevolent 'Institution (founded by his father) is
indebted in a great measure for its prosper;ity ... ; to him is to be
attributed the invention of metal Chinese tyPes; to him principally
is to be ascribed the commencement of Native schools, and the
whole care and labour of carrying them on his shoulders;, he
compares the proofs of the Bible with the English translation;
he keeps the School's Accounts; superintends the sending out of
the bills, c,; assists his father in the Chinese, and is most active
in the general concerns of the Mission.7~
He became a versatile and voluminous writer for educated lay
people77 and ploughed his literary earnings into Serampore Collegeto the tune of 30,0001 (pounds sterling~ to help it survive from
. 1837 until the BMS agreed to take it over in 1855. This he did,
'given his conviction, as a Christian, in the period of Europe's
Enlightenment, that the educatiQD of the natives was "the needful
forerunner of Christianity.78
In order to retain hjs services at Se..ampore, it is quite likely that.
his father helped him engage in some pursuits, even over William
Carey's objections! He became founding editor of the first vernacular
Bengali newspaper, Samachar Darpan and of the first English
newspaper in India, the Friend of India (both its weekly and later,
quarterly, edition). He also gained distinction as the editor of the
Calcutta Review. But he continued to carry the Serampore flag, even
after the Trio passed away, c.onsistently advocating "the cause, of
vernacular (sic) education at a time when the rising wave of English
education threatened to carry everything before it. "79
. ,
As an accomplished though amateur Orientalist, he may be said
toI have followed his
father's steps. He was thoroughly at home in
'
Bengali and served as the official translator to the British
Government of Bengal between 1834 ~nd 1852.80 According to G.C.
Boase, in the British Dictionary of National Biography, he accepted
this position unwillingly, and "henceforth was abused daily in,the
native newspapers as 'the hireling of the government. m Quite pOSSibly,
he viewed such well-remunerated service -at 1,000 pounds sterling
32
a year81 _ as being the only way by which he could obtain significant
funds to keep Serampore's college going. Shades of William Carey,
who served the East India Company as translator for several decades!
John Marshman went on to the rank of a leading British scholar
of Indian history and philology between the 1820s and 1870s. He
compiled historical treatises, some of which he and the others turned
into textbooks for Bengali schools.82 His works included the highly
remunerative Guide to the Civil Law of the Presidency of Fort William
[Bengal] (1848). However, after returning to England, he never
received the recognition due to one of his attainments.&'! Imperial
Victorians preferred those who had risen through the ranks in line
with their own metropolitan protocol.
Marshman and Melanchthon: Men at the Crossroads
Serampor.e demanded much of the younger Marshman, and owed
much to him. Without the extraordinary opportunities it proferred .
- him as the favored son of some pioneer missionary educators and
linguists, he would scarcely have made a notable mark in nineteenth
century mission history. But "greatness" was thrust upon him far
more than it was sought by him. Filial piety was summoned by an
incredible threesome from one who was not eager to be a missionary
protege. And there was the rub.
Serampore called for dedication. Those who responded to the call
: of the family enterprise invariably proceeded to make herculaean
contributions to the ,cause. That meant burying one's dream for the
future-and then being misunderstood by outsiders for identifying
so fully with the mission's agenda Thus Serampore came to symbolize
the heroic. Built from monumental effusions of blood, tears, toil and
sweat, it ever involved self-saciifice on a sobering scale. That is why
it ,became so hard for'its members to divest themselves of it.
Loyalty to something larger than life thus won from John C.
Marshman more than forty of \the best years of his life. For Serampore
stood for an ideal. It symbolised. a quest for the magnificent, whatever
the cost: man's utmost for the Highest. The fact that it is enshrined
in monumental history is due in a large measure to the younger
Marshman. Between' 1853 and 1859, after bidding a final farewell
to India, he undertook a writing project on the Serampore Trio and
. their mission on an unprecedented' scale, which has never been
,matched. The fruit of this was a two-volume opus which, until
recently, has done' more than anything else to assist retrieval of the
memory of an amazing mission band.Si
Such was the legacy of a layman who followed in the train of
Erasmus and Luther in nineteenth century Serampore. A layman
33
called Marshman who did not fit neatly into the conventional religious
or secular patterns- as if there was something of Melanchthon in
him. Philip Melanchthon, the disciple and life-long friend of Luther,
. who was so profoundly influenced by Erasmus that he once considered
.,himself to be an Erasmian Latiriist. Melanchthon (ne Schwartzerd,
1497-1560), the frequently-misunderstood Christian humanist and
philologist whose concern for learning in Reformation Germany "left
a deep mark on upper schools and universities, for which he wrote
. textbooks that lasted for several generations." Conciliatory
Melanchthon, "the quiet reformer," whose doctrinal development went
through many stages, who kept the Protestant Reformation going
on an ecumenical track after the death of his great mentors.86
But such a comparison was never made by Carey. Obviously, it
could not have been made in 1810, nor could it have been essayed
for at least another ten years. We will consequently refrain from
pursuing the matter any· further. even though various 'Lutheran'
creations by veterans in the early sixteenth and nineteenth centuries
could not have advanced without the help of a prodigious young
partner in each case.
It must suffice here to note that there is some warrant for
conceiving Erasmus and Luther redivivus in Serampore. But at this
stage of the inquiry, one runs lhe risk of drifting into speculation if
one claims that broader parallel patterns may be discerned in the
operations of religious reformation in pre-Victorian Bengal and
sixteenth century Central Europe.
So we take leave of Erasmi an Carey, Bengal's literary pioneer and·
Bible translator. The simple and subtle, the humble and honoured
pioneer, who contrasted so much with mercurial Marshmansenior,
Serampore's "loose cannon."86 Anglo-Indian Carey, who contended
for the faith inAsia in a low-profile manner: who left it to someone
with a 'Lutheran' psyche~ like Marshman, to engage in heavy-duty
public relations in a hostile environment. 87 But we remember that
the father of·the celebrated coastal mission was only one. of the
three or four fine veterans: who relied on'William Ward to maintain
the vital psyc~ological middle-ground in his team; who relied on
Hannah as mother of the mission community, and on John as son,
to keep the mission from collapse. Sine quibus non.
References
1. The so-called ·Serampore Trio· consisted of William Carey, Joshua Marshman
and William Ward. They worked together in a Danish enclave twelve miles
from Calcutta. S~phen C. Neill, the .'former dean of (Indian) mission history,
wrote in 1970: "Almost all missionary biographies need to be rewritten.,. But
34
2.
3.
4.
6.
6.
INDIAN .JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY
. the principal impreBSion derived by one reader is that modem and careful work
has added still further lustre to' the reputation of that best of all mission
biographies .[(emphasis mine], John Clark Marshman's lATe and Times of Carey,
MCI1'8hman ond Ward (London,1859). Filial piety did sometimes lead the yowipr
Marshman a little to overestimate the merits oC his distinguished Cather; ..·
otherwise he maintained an astonishing objectivity and impartiality in his
handling of a crucial period in Christian history" [NtillI, ."The History of Missions: .
An Academic Discipline: in G.J. Cuming (ed.), The Mission of the Church cnd
the Propogotion of the Poith, Cambridge: the University Press, 1970;' p.158.]
ThiS was high praise for a Baptist layman to receive from the Anglican sch,olar,
Bishop Neill.
.
I have quoted from the original letter which was written by William Carey to
John Ryland, of Bristol, England, and dated 24th May 1810 (emphasis mine):
it is preserved in College Street Baptist Church's (Northampton) BMS
manuscripts' [letter no. 33]. A slightly edited version of this· was quoted by John
C. Marshman.. The Life and TimesofCare;y, Marsh man, ond Word;, Embracing
the History of ~he Serampore Mission, voI. I, London, 1859, pp. 433-434
(henceforth Cited GB Life & Times of CMW). [I refer to J.C. Marshman (JCM)
as thel son, and "Marshman" as the father, (Joshua).] JCMs mwn editorial
change was to make Carey say:" he is Luther and lam Erasmus:" in other
worda, JCM dropped Carey's indermite article aa" Crom the reference to Luther.
This sectiOIl oBhe letter that I have quoted was edited out (probably by Fuller)
of the published version of the letter in the BMS' Periodical Accounts, 4:21, ,pp.
150f. The letter is also reproduced in Eustace Carets Memoir of William Care;y,
D.D., 2d edn.~ London, 1837, pp. 469·471. In the letter, Carey, in a
characteristically self.deprecating, winsome manner, deplored his own lack of
Spintuality. A heavily edited version of the original is to be found in S. Pearce
Carey, William Care;y, D.D. Fellow of 1-innoean Society, London; Hodder and
Stoughton, 1923, p.266.
One of the greatest miBsiologists oC our time has declared repeatedly: "Historians
are needed to help theOlogians [and missiologists] to be honest~" For Christians, .
history is of huge importance, and not least in a Hindu environment, as my
1993 bicentenirlal ·Carey Day LeCture" at Serampore emphasized: "Mythology
and MiBBiology: Towards a Methodology of Understanding the Serampore Trio
and Their MiBSion" in Daniel, J.T.K and RE. Hedlund, eds., CareYs ObligGtion
ond India's RenoisSGRCe, Serampore, West Bengal: Council of Serampore College,
1993, pp. 45·815. This reminds us of the major methodological need there is, to
view Carey and his colleagues as a trinity, rather than as a team oC ·one big
man and two side·kickS.--See the closing paragraph oC the present essay.
This is to be read in light of my essay, "Mythology and'Missiology: A
Methodological Approach to the Pre·Victorian Mission of the serampore Trio,"
International Review of Mission, vol83 (July 1994), pp•••.. I hope that professional
church historians willsheci further light on the Eras• •Lutheran-SerampOrean.
Formula and will refine this initial exploratory study further.
John C. Marshman was much more their protege than FeUx Carey or any of
his (Carey) brothers ever were.
.
' .
An example of the unparalleled service he provided Cor scholars may be found
in the case of the pre-mission caree~ oCWilliam Ward. Without the small clues
that JCMleft for researchers who are prepared to engage in detective work,
one could hardly have imagined that Ward was an outstanding radical social
activist before 1797. The BMS and other historians have studiously neglected
that data:' thus the need for the pace-setting exposed by A. Christopher S~th:
SWilliam Ward, Radical Reform, and Missions in the 1790s." American Baptist
QUGrierly, 10:3 (1993), pp. 218·244 By way oC contrast, the essay by Ralph
Winter in the April 1994 issue of Missiology, SWilliam Carets Major Novelty"
THE PROTEG:t
OF ERASMUS AND LU'Ilq:R
35
(22:2, pp. 203-222) unfortunately displays far too little evidence of having
consulted primary sources or of having delved much at all into archives on the
Serampore Trio:' especially Bee p. 219. n.3.
7. Richard L. DeMolen (ed.), Erasmus of Rotterdam. A Quincentennial Symposium
New York: Twayne Publishers, 1971. Although "Erasmus never considered
himself to be a theologian in the technical sense of a. profes!lional qualirled to
teach in a theological faculty," he did - "as a Biblical scholar and student oC
historical theology" - become a Cambridge Professor of Divinity: ibid., pp. 5356. Although ordained as a priest in 1492, Erumus left his Augustinian order
to pursue university studies in Paris. In the opinion ofFranz Hildel'brandt, the
humanists were more popular in. England than the Reformers: see his
Melanchthon: Alien. Or Ally? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1946, p.
ix)., Thus Cambridge once hoped to make Melanchthon Regius ProCessor in the
Divinity Faculty, but certainly not Lutherl
, ,
8. According to Kenneth Scott Latourette, "the Renaissance and humanism shOwed
distinctly Christian features" in Northern Europe. "Erasmus, the leading
. representative of humanistic studies" there was trained in his impresionable
years in the Netherlands by the Brethren of the CommonLife: The Thousand
Years of Uncertainty AD. 500 - A.D. 1500, vol. 2 of "A History of the Expansion
of Christianity," Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978' [=1938, 1966, 1970], p. 393.
Again Latourette: "Humanism and the Cructifying influences of the Renaissance
had almost no effect ~n Luthe!, but Erasmus, who did so much to prepare the
way for Protestantism, was an outstanding expression of them both": Three
Centuries of Aduance, A.D. 1500 - AD. 1800, vol. 3 (1978), pp. 13, 41Sf. "For
hisirenic and rational faith," Erasmus was highly es~med by Lucius Cary [no
forebear ofWilliiun Carey's?], second Viscount Falkland., according to McConica
(ibid., p. 1). On Lucius Cary (1610?-1643), see the British Dictionary ofNational
Biography, London, 1887, vol. 9, pp. 246-~'i7. Lucius was a legendary hero in
the second century A.D., and was "called the first Christian king in Britain":
DNB, 1893, vol. 34.
9. CC. David J. Bo~, Transforming Mission. Paradigm Shifts in Theology of
MiBBion, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1991, p. 186. Erasmus thus "remained
within the medieval Roman Catholi~Paradigm yet at the same time heralded
a ne~ era" (pace Kung, 1987). On,Carey and his cohort al! transitional figures
between Puritan and Victorian mission eras, see A. Christopher Smith, "The
Legacy of William Carey," International Bulletin' of MiBBionary Research 16:1
(1992), p. 7. Both men may be said to have "lived and worked in a period of
serious religious crisis and schisui" in Western Christendom: cf. DeMolen, p.
65.
.
.
10. Letter from Carey to Andrew Fuller, dated 21 Janauary 1802, p. 7.
11. The 300-year period between the Reformation and Carey's day covered by
Thomas Haweis' An impartial and. succinct History of the rise, declension, and
relJiual of the Chruch of Christ: from the birth of our SalJiour to the present
time. With faithful characters of the principal personages, ancient and modern.
(London, 1800) was re-published in the USA (Baltimore) in 1803 asAn impartial
and succinct History of the relJilJal and progress of the Church of Christ: from
the reformation to the present time (Worcester, MS). Presumably Carey read
the 1800 version. in Bengal. My quotation is from vol. 2, p. 82, of the "second
American edition" (Baltimore, 1807), which was a virtual replica of the 1800
London edition. Haweisdedicated his two-volume work to "Joseph HardcastOe,
Esq. Treasurer, and all the directors and governors of the MISSIONARY
SOCEITY'" [sic] on July 10, 1799.
12. Haweis, an Impartial and Succinct History, Baltimore, 1807, vol. 2, pp. 83-84.
13. William Carey, An Enquiry into the Obligations of Chrlstians to Use Means for
. the ConlJersion of the Heathens, Leicester, 1934, facsimile edn. [=1792], p. 35,
36
14. Ct A. Christopher Smith, MA Tale oCMany Models: The Missiological Significance
oCth Serampore Trio,· Missiology: An IntemationoJ RelJiew 20:4 (1992), pp. 479.
80,484-87,499. For the h'brary holdings of the Seramore Mission before 1819,
and of Serampore College's lA'brary after 1818 (posthumously named "the Carey
Libr~ry"); cf. Sunil KUinar Chatteljee, MiBBion in Indla. A Catalot/ue of the
Carey Library (Serampore, 1980), and The Carey Library Pamphlets (Religious
Series). A Catalogue (Serampore, 1982). These listing of. works dating from
1569 do not yield insights on the question of the sources of ,Carey's knowledge,
of Erasmus.
15. Thus see The Works of Jonatoon Edwards, volumes 1.9, published by Yale
University Press, New Haven. (CT. during the last ~ades. Nor is there. any
I reference to Edwards in Bruce Mansfield'sInterpretations of E1YJ8mus c. 15501750 (Toronto: Uniersity Press, 1979)- or in the sequel volume for c. 1750·
1920 (Toronoto, 1992). According to Dr. Ken Minkema, of the Jonathan Edwards'
Works project at Yale University, there is no evidence that Edwards ever read
anything by Erasmus (private phone conversation, June 9, 1994)
16. John Gillies, Historical Collections Relating. to Remarkable Periods of the Success
, of the Gospel (Edinburgh, 1754, revised in 1845 and republished in 1981)
contained no more than one small quotation. Millar's work was published in
Edinburgh in 2 volumes in 1723; 1 volume in Edinburgh in 173~ 2 volumes in
London in 1731 (and 1726). Millar's Whole Works were published in 8 volumes
in Paisley, Scotland, in 1789. Millar died in 1752.
17. It is even more edimcult to specify which ofErasmus'volumes Caray may have
read, Erasmus' CoUect Works run to 86 volumes and more than 200 items by
him are cited in The NationoJ Union Catalog pre-19561mprints. However; this
extensive literary deposit reflects the fact that Erasmus had a huge and broad
influence in European thinking until the mid nineteenth century. Erasinus was
by no means an inconsequential figure and, humanist though he was, he could
not have been easily missed by Carey and his British mentors.
18. A. Christopher Smith, "Mythology and Missiology,· IBM, 1994, p. (draft, pp.
8,20) n. 18, Apart from this pedagogical intervention by Carey,Marshman (after
1819) nomrally lectured there on"Ecclesiastical History:
19. George Smith, The Life of William Carey, D.D., Shoemaker and Missionary, ..
London, 1885; p. 42; cC; pp. 236-237. Erasmus was no stranger to England. In
1511 he was appointed Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity and a lecturer of
Greek at Cambridge; between 1509 and 1514 he stayed there for several years
and paid repeated visits. His Ecclesiastes (Basel, 1535) included Ma moving
testimony of his love for the missionary cause- and was greatly admired - and
re-published - by Thomas Bray, who played an iniportant part in founding the
SPG and SPCK, one hundred years before the BMa. In this work, J. Van Den
Berg opines, we hear Cl... more the voice of the catholich Christian than that
of the humanist: Erasmus is impelled by a pure desire to see many souls freed
from satan's tyranny and .won for the Redeemer": Constrained By Jesus' LolJe,
Kampen: Kok, 1956, pp. 12f., 40f. Erasmus' Enchirdion: Anne M.O'Donnell,
SN.D. (ed.), E1YJ8mus, Enchiridion Militis Christiani, An English Version, Oxford
University Press, 1981, p. 7, lines 32-35; and, to "wyn the turkes," p. 9, lines
20-36..
20. Timothy George, Faithful WitneBB, The Life and Mission of William Carey,
Birmingham, AL: New Hope, 1991, p. 141. However, George noted that,
"Marshman was a better Greek and Hebrew scholar" than Carey, who" '" often
ran doubtful renderings by him." George referred to Carey as the "Wyclifl'e of
the East" (pp. 137-143), but also helpfully reminded historians: "In the sixteenth
century Erat!mus had set forth his Paraphrases of the New Testament for, as
he said, he desired to see the sacred Word in the hands of 'women and cobblers,
clowns; mechnanics, and even the Turks" (p. 138). George compared Carey's
1'HE PROTJ!:Gt
21.
22.
23.
24.
26.
OF ERASMUS AND LUTHER
37
translation work with that of both Erasmuil and Luther. According to the New
Dictionary oftheology, Sinclair B. Ferguson and David F. Wrighi(eds.), Leicester:
Inter-Varsity Press, 1988: "With one book [his 1516 New Instrument] Erasmus
put the Greek New Testament with reach oC preachers and scholars" (p. 226;
cC. Mc Conica, p. 43). It had a revolutionary effect on biblical exegesis and
• ...contributed to a general movement espousing Church reCorm and a return
to early Christianity (O'Donnell, p. 22). On the quality oC Carey's translations:
see Smalley pp, 48C.
Tyndale was the rlrBt to translate Erasmus' Enchiridion into English between
1621 and 1623; see O'Donnell, ERASMUS, Enchiridion, pp. xlix, liii. Another
Englishman, Miles Coverdale, produCed A SOOrte Recapitualation or Abrigement
of erasmus Ench,ridion brefely comprehendinge the summe and contentes thereof
IJery prfitable and necssary to be rede of all trew Christen men [sic] in 1545: see
Writings and Translations of Myles COIJerdtJe, Bishop of Exeter, (reprint 19,68)
Cambridge University Press, 1844, EraslDUs' work contained 22 rules Cor
Christian living and identified the "means" to be used by Christians, in chapter
2.
David Heim's essay, 'The Death oCHeroes, the Recovery oCthe Heroic" (Christian
Century, December 22-29,1993, pp. 1297-1303) evokes many aspects oCCarey's
memolY.Heim quotes the mystically.minded Evelyn Underhill, "To choose Christ
means to choose the heroic course," adding: "The way oC the pilgrim means
having 'to plod on and on' with the hard and unpromising job, with helping
other 8Ouls, with forigiving and forgetting, even when [the individual's} own 'life
feels dead and dark"" (p. 1303, emphasis mine). What an opposite
characterization oC Carey's life that could bel Again, Heim quotes Jospeh
Cambpell: ..... the hero oCmyth is a being who does what no one else can or will
do" (ibid.). Campbell is an authority on ancient hero myths and human beings'
"eternal struggle Cor identity: see bis The Hero With a Thousand Faces,' PrincetOn
University Press, 2d ed., 1968. James McConica points out that "the Enchridion
... was meant to supply an epitome oC doctrine and exhortation combined, to
instruct and inspire its reader in the life of true piety": Erasmus. Past Masters
Series, Oxford University Press,1991, p. 61. According to Leon-E.Halldn,
"Christocentrism was the goldeu rule oC Erasmus' spirituality as well as oC his
theology": Erasmus. A Critical Biography, trans. by John Tonkin, Oxford:
,Blackwell, 1993, p. 286f. However. Erasmus Cocused more on Jesus the. moral
teacher than on Christ the Redemer: DeMolen, p. 40. For Erasmus' critical
challenges to the contemporBIY status quo oC Christianity, see Halkin, pp. 289296. Erasmus. believed that the New Testament had "power to heal the moral
blindness oC European 8Ociety" (DeMolen. p. 42), as did Carey.
Edward Kilian Burger has argued in a doctoral thesis ("Erasmus and the
AIlabaptists," unpublished dinertation, University of California, Santa Barbara,
1977) that the early Anabaptists in Europe "tuned to Erasmus Cor guidanceand support in their efforts to restore primitive Christianity," and that "the
clearest connection" between them, over agaisnt Luther, "was their common
approach to human freedom and responsibility" (pp. 150-164, v.vii, 1-6).
David Heirn, "The Death of Heroes, the RecovelY oC the. Heroic," Chru,tiOn
Century, December 22-29, 1993, p. 1303. On the heroic in Carey, see my essay
in IRM (July 1994). _
Of course, Carey did not operate at the same jntellectuallevel as Erasmus did
in the Western world. By 1508. Erasmus was regarded as "the most celebrated
teacher and promoter of humanism in Renaissance Europe" (DeMolen, p. 19).
Carey, as an evangelically-oriented Baptist pastor was much more than a
humanist, even though he held an appointment as proCessor in the British
colonial (quasi Civil Service) Fort William College in Calcutta Cor some thirty
years and cherished that position with remarkable dedication. Carey appreciated
38
humanistic reasons for challenging the rule of ecclesiastical establjshments,
though it must be admitted that he was more passionate as a Dissenter in
Britian than he ever was in the politically.volatile scene of British-occupied
Bengal
26. Cf. DeMolen, pp. 18-66; Comelius Augustijn, Erasmus. His Life, Works, and
In/lwmce. trans. by J.C. Grayson, Toronoto: University.Toronoto Press, 1991,
pp. 192·200. Erasmus' passion for Graeco·Roman classical culture was reflected.
· in Fort William College, Calcutta,which was the grand creation and joy of
Marquis Wellesley,the Governor General of Bengal, who appointed Carey as
a lecturer .md later IUI Professor of Sanskrit. But for WellesleY's grand
munificence and patronage of Carey, the Baptist missionary CIlUld scarcely
have launched onto his prestigious linguistic career which gave sO much attention
to the Hindu classics.
27 .. Cd. DeMolen. p. 23; and McConica,. back cover.
28. Cf Carey's Enquiry. 1934 edn. [=1792]. p, 35, and Lewis W. Spitz, "Erasmus as
a Reformer: in DeMoien (ed)., Erasmus of Rotterdam. p. 49. Erasmus was such
as complex personality that·"his biographers and ... historians have seen him
in '" very contradictory ways" (ibid.. p. 50). By analogy, this shouldwam
· missiologists to avoid treating William Carey as a simple and straightforward
pe1SOnality. Both "men of the cloth" may be seen as transitional fIgUres or as
salutary anomalies "in an age of feverish polarization" (cf. DeMolen, p. 66).
29. ,As a social being, Erasmus was eirenic; but as a literateuihe could appear as
a scathing critic. In this, he was more forceful than the humble Carey, who
refused to write or pint" ... anything oCa specicjally religous or devotional kind
.... lest his life or character might suddenly belie the things he dared to write"
(J.B. Middlebrook, William Carey, London: Carey Kingsgate Press, 1961, p. ".
103: cf. Carey's letter to Fuller, dated 14 August 1804, in Eustace Carey.
Memoir of William Carey, D.D., 2nd ed., London, 1837, p. 21).
30. Joshua M~hman (1768·1837) was a zealous English pioneer of education and
evangelism in Bengal. Born in Wiltshire, his passion for books took him to
London where he worked as a bookseller's porter. He returned home and took
· up weaving until he was appointed as an elementary teacher fu a church school
in Bristol. After five years of part·time study at th city's Baptist academy, he
applied to the BMS and was accepted for· service in India. He and his family
arrived at the Danish enterpot of Serampore in October 1799. He managed the
Serampore Mission during William carey's prolonged spells of duty in cwcutta.
With an iron constitution and formidable drive. Marshman outlived his peers
and challenged young missionary recruits to exert themselves in evangelizing
India. Unfortunately, nothing more than John Fenwick's rudimentary
Biographical Sketclu!s of Joshua Marshman D.D., 1843 (privately printed) has
been written on Marshman's life. The Dictionary ofNational Biography contains
a summary of his life and work: 1893, vol. 36. pp. 255·256. Both Marshman and
Luther may be said. to have never lost their "conservative sense of an order
embodied in instituions." Thus Marshman could be surprisingly affirmative of
British JUle in India while Luther ·proved in many ways, a most reluctant
revolunary· who never wished to abandon tradition, unless his reading of
scripture coD:lPelled him to it": cf. G.R. Elton, Reformation Europe 1517·1559.
London: CollinsIFontana, 1971. p. 17.
31. Timothy George, Faithful Witness, p. 136.
32. Carey and his two closest British Baptist colleagues laboured at Serampore
between 1800 and 1837. Initialy under the aegis of the Baptist Missionary
Soooity, this mi88ioanry team in Bengal began to assert its independence from
the BMS after Andrew Puller's death in 1815. From 1807, the triumvirate
referred to their mi88ionary team in Serampore IUI "The Serampore Union." In
June 1818, the BMS committee in LondoJi wrote to the Trio: "Yo~ speak,
THE PROTEGlt OF ERASMUS AND LUTHER
39
brethren, of the Baptist Mission at Serampore: but when did this Society, as
a distinct body, commence its operations? Where are its records?- See Joseph
lvimey (ed.), Letters on the Serampore Controversy, 1831, p. 140. Notice that
the journal, Periodical Accounts of the Serampore Mission began before 1820.
I use the term "the Serampore Mission" as shorthand for the mission venture
established by the Trio in Serampore in 1800 and which lasted until all three
had passed away in 1837. .
33. Eg., Comelius J. Dyck, An Introduction to Mennonite History, 3rd edo., Scottdale,
PA: Herald Press, 1993, p. '28. Dyck concluds: "Luther held all people to be
.miserable sinne~, while Erasmus [who represented the best in humanism] ..• ·
stressed their fundamental goodness. Luther might be described as crying,
"Back to the Bible,' while Erasmus might have asked, 'What is the Bible?'
(Bainton)." Dyck posits that: The Reformation would not have been possible
. without the humanists' recovery of the Scriptures and of biblical scholarship.;'
They thus may be said to have "added spiritual depth to the church by stressing
the inward and personal dimer::sion of faith, where[as] the reformers were often
forced to quarrel over doctrine or external church issues" (ibid., p. 29). But the
contrasts should not be drawn too starkly, becaJlse (pace Dyck) the major
Protestant reformers in Europe had a humanist education and were scholars
in their own right. Notice how Marshman referred to Luther during· his funeral
sermon for the first member of the Trio to die, Wiliam Ward: see George,
Faith/W. Witnes, p. 137.
34. Marshman engaged in substantial pamphlet skirmishing with Raja Ram Mohan
Roy as well as with British opponents of the Serampore Trio: thus, ·Joshua
Marshman's privately-printed /lA Defence of the Deity alld Atonement ofJesus
Christ, in reply to Ram Mohan Roy of Calcutta" (London,1822), and "Reply,to
Abbe J A. Dubois's Letters on the State of Christianity in India" (Serampore,
1824). .
,
35. Especially cf. Carey'sletter to John Dyer (BMS Secretary), dated 15 July 1819,
and his letter of May 30, 1816, to Ryland, in Joshua Marshman (ed.), Letters
from the Rev. Dr. Carey, London, 1828, pp. 4-5, 7-8.
36. See Ward's letter to Fuller of 7 October, 1805, p. 4 (emphasis mine).
37. CaTeY majored on conciliation and so was acceptable as a professor of the East
India Company's (Civil Service) Fort William College, while Marshman majored
on advocacy and got into hot water. See n.25 above. Cf. Haweis on Erasmus in
his An impartial and succinct history, vol. 2, pp. 83-84.
38. Erasmus, Enchiridion, 1981 edn. of the 1534 English translation, p. 6 lines 2930. Although Carey was a peace-loving, ecumenical pragmatist, in relationships,
he ever sought to act according to the highest principles with utmost consistency:
cf. Carey's letter to BurIes (BMS, London), dated 5 Oct. 1821. p. 4, and E.
Glenn Hinson, "Carey and Ecumenical Pragmatism." Journal of Ecumenical
\
Studies. 17:2 (1980), pp. 73-83.
39. Ward to Fuller, 31 December 1803, p. 1 (BMS microfilm reel 44, Archieves Box
IN 18.
40. Fuller to Ward, 27 October 1804, p. 8.
41. Andrew Fuller also needed two close colleagues tohelp him maintain his poise.
Thus his biographer,Andrew Gunton Fuller wrote: "The singular wisdom of
SutcliJT, and the scrupulous integrity of Ryland, serVed not only to strengthen
and develop [sic] those qualities already so conspicuous in Mr. Fuller, 'but
happily to temper that constitutional ardour w.hich might otherwise have betrayed
him into indiscretions (emphasis mine): Memoir of Andrew Fuller, in Complete
Works 0{ the ReI). Andrew Fuller, Joseph Belcher (ed.), Philadelphia: American
Baptist Publication Society, 1845 [=1837], based on other works published in
1818 and 1824], vol. I, p. 63.
42. Cf. George, William 9arey, p. 38.
40
43. See Andrew Fuller's annotation of 25 August 1807 to "Marshman'lI Plan for
Taking All Asia' by a Coup de Main" (unpublished document, dated 18 November
1806, in BMS Archives box H6);William Ward's Journal, entry for 27 April
1806. Cf. JCM, Life & Times of CMW, vol. I, passim, and WiIliam A. Smalley,
Translation As Mission. Bible Translation in the Modem Missionary Movement.
Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1992, p. 48.
44. Cf. the Trio's letter to the BMS Committee, dated 10 February 1818, p. 6. Not
for nothing has Andrew F. Walls called Marshman's Chinese translation "one
of the greatest white elephants of the modem i:nissionary movement-: oral
presenation at the international missiological colloquium held in Nashville,
Tennessee, June '2, 1994. Walls focussed on Robert Morrison's China-based
expertise in Chinese language, lore, law and culture by way of contrast. On the
unhealthy competition between Marshman and Morrison in chinese Bible
translation, cf. Carey to Sutcliffe,.5 August 1812, p. 1; Marshman to Ryland,
13 December 1816;Carey to BurIes, 19 August 1818, p. 3.
45. Haweis, An Impartial and Succinct History, 1807, vol. 2, p. 84.
46. Cf. McConica, p; 66-67, for the contrast between Erasmus and Luther. "As
Luther became more strident ... the irenic Erasmus began to distance himself
from' the controversial Reformer. Correspondence between the two churchman
became increasingly bitter.... The differences. between the two men, however, .
were by no means solely theologieal.·Erasmus sincerely wanted reform, but not
at the expense of unity [within the Roman CatholicChurchr:New Dictionary
of Theology (IVP. 1988) pp. 226f.; cf. Clyde Manschreck, Melanchtlwn. The Quiet
Reformer. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1958, pp. 98, 113-120. According to N.P
Feldmeth, Erasmus the humanist was a "frail intellectual" who ".. ; defended
Luther's freedom to criticize abuses, but he could never condone an ecclesiasticBI
rebellionagaisnt authority." The Reformers Caulted him "Cor vacillation and
timidity." Many scholars believe that he Celt that "his consuming passion for
piety and unity was best served ... through the power oC his pen" (ibid.). For
an indication ofthe doctrinal debate between Erasmus and Luther, see Haweis'
An Impartial and Succinct History, Baltimore, 1807, vol. 2, pp. 100-101.
47. Letters from Carey to Ryland, dated 11 April 1818, and to Fuller, 2 August
1811, p. 3. By the term 'tortuous,' Carey referred to Marshman's style of se~r
expression and, communication which was less than straightforward; see his
exposition of Marshm;~::s "tortuosities" in the letter that Carey wrote to Ryl&'ld
on 11 April, 1818. Marshman's theology, writing and workstyle had a particularly
Puritan slant. His daughter-in-Iaw,Rachel Voigt, wrote that he inherited from
his mother "the strain of calvinism, together with a certain Puritan austerity,
whichdistingil~hed him through life" (H. Voigt, "Memoir of Mrs. Hannah
Marshman's Earlier Years," unpublished manuscript, n.d, p. 23). His turgid writing in english contrasts with Luther's powerful and eloquent mode of
expression in German. For a charact.eristic and uninhibited example of
Marshman's writing, see Marshman's letter to Ryland, dated 25 May 1805.
Other than polemical pamphlets.,.Marshman wrote: Hfnts Relative to Native
Schools (1816). Thoughts on Propagating Christianity More Effectually Among
the Heathen 1827), an a Brief MemoirRelative to the Operations of the Serampore
Missonaries, Bengal (1827). He also produced an edited version of 32 of william
Carey's letters, from the turbulent period of 1815 to 1828, under the title of
Letters from the Rev, Dr. Carey (1828).
48. Letter of 16 April, 1826 from someone at Serampore to Joshua Marshman, who
. was then on furlough in England. Serampore's . acute "pecuniary
embarrassments" were occasioned by the huge costs that attended the building
and running of Serampore college, in the face of powerful reluctance by the
BMS to fund that school and other' projects initiated independently by the
Serampore Trio.
41
49. Sunil Kumar ChatteJjee, Hannah Marshman. The First Woman Missionary in
India (1987); Rachel Voigt, "Memoir of Hannah Marshman" (Voigt was her
daughter). Among all her other work, Hannah gave birth to twelve children, six
of whom died in infancy: JCM,Life & Times of CMw, vol. 2, p. 520.
50. ChatteJjee, Hannah Marshman, 1987, p. 65-72, 89, 95-98. However, in view of
the remarkable contributions she made to the Serampore Mission, at her own
family's expense, the Trio voted her a personal allowance: thus Ward's letter
to Ryland, 30 April, 1817, p. 25.
_
i
51. Ward to Fuller, 7 October, 1805, p. 4. E. Daniel Potts called her a "domineering
wife": British Baptist Missionaries in India. 1793-1837, Cambridge University
Press, 1967, pp. 17, 21. In his personal daily journal, Ward made other lessthan-flattering remarks about the redoubtable lady.
52. As quoted by J.C. Marshman, Life & Times of CMW, 1, p. 464. Although I have
not located the original 1816 letter so far, most of the Carey's observations here
track with Gerhard Ebeling's characterization of Martin Luther, in his Luther.
An Introduction to His Thought, London: CollinsIFontana, 1975, p. 29; "... in
almost all his writings we find ourselves face to face with his great inward
struggle;· It is as though within this human soul, so powerful and so richly
endowed by God and by nature, two worlds were in conflict ...." Ryland censured
Marshman for demanding of younger (British) missionaries the frugality ~d
self-denial that he and his wife, Hannah, exerci!\ed: see Fuller to Carey, 15
May 1809, p. 2; cf. Carey to Fuller, 2 August 1811, p. 3, and 4 August 1814.
On Marshman's "imperfections: which Carey "not unfrequently complained of'
to Fuller and Ryland, see: Carey's letter to Ryland, of 14 .June 1821, declaring:
"I still admit the same - but when the whole Christian world was engaged in
a Hue and Cry against him, there could be no reason for me to say anything
to increase the general odium. Upon the contrary I saW in him an injured
Friend, whom it was my duty to defend. This I have done, and think I have
done right in so doing" [sic] (p. 2).
53. Carey to Fuller, 4 August 1814, p. 2.
54. Carey to Ryland, 4 Oct. 1818, p. 12. JCM sought to debunk this in 1830,
concluding: "The sum and substance, then, of. this great scheme of family
aggrandizement is, that Dr. Marshman's eldest son has been a member of the
. Serampore Mission for the last eleven years, and has assisted his venerable
Colleagues in sustaining the unexampled difficulties which have beset their
path": JCM, "Review of Two Pamphlets," 1830, p. 66.
55. John (1820), Hannah (1820) and Joshua Marshman (1822-27) all met with the
BMS committee in England in Order to effect an amicable settlement between
the BMS and Serilmpore, but their atempts were in vain. The Marshman
family drew a lot of flack from young missionaries who were devoted to the
BMS and who sailed for India in the 1810s with seeds of suspicion about the
Mashmans already sown intheir minds. Cf. Carey's letter of December 30,
1816, to Ryland, in Marshman (ed.), Lettersof Dr. Carey, pp. 5-6.
56. Protege: "one who is' protected or trained or whose career is furthered by a
person of experience, prominence or influence" (Webster's Ninth New Collegiate
Dictionary, 1985, p. 946). In defence of the Serampore Trio, he wrote pamphlets
such as: "Reply of Mr. J.C. Marsbman to the Attack of Mr. Buckingham on the
Serainpore Missionaries" (London, 1826) and "Review of two Pamphlets" (1830):
see n. 72 below.
57. Hannah Marshman's grandfather was· a Baptist minister from Frome, Somerset:
John Fenwick, Biographical sketches of Joshua Marshman, 1843, p. 5, cf. Sunil
Kumar ChatteJjee Hannah Marshman, The first woman missionary in India,
Calcutta, 1987, pp. 16-23.
.
58. Thomas Armitage, A History of the Baptist, New York, 1887, pp. 669, 671. Cf.
Thomas J. Nettles, By His Grace and for His Glory. A Historical, Theological,
42
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
64.
65.
66.
67.
INDIA..TIJ JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY
and Practiccl Study of the Doctrines of Grace in Baptist Life, grand Rapids, MI:
Baker Book House, 1990, p. 40. In 1652, John Clarke wrote: III News from NewEnglcnd: or A Narctive of New-Englands Persecution [sic}, London, 1652; it is
available in Vol. n of ·Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society,"
Boston, 1854.
Robert G. Torbet, A History of the Baptist, 3rd edn., Valley Forge, PA: Judson'
Press, 1973 [=1963]; Collections of the Rhode Island Historiccl Society, vol. IV,
Providence, RI, 1838, pp. 210-212. Fuller and Ward declined offers of a D.D.
from Brown University (Providence, RI), which was the daughter of Bristol's
Baptist Aademy (England), where Marshman did his theological studies in the
second half of the 1790s. Clarke ~as first pastor of the rust Baptist Church in
Newport, RI.
CM. MacInnes, Bristol and the Slave Trade, issued by the Bristol Branch of
the Historical Association, the University, Bristol, 1963, pp. 1-6, Cr. Gardon A.
Catherall, ~ristol College and the Jamaican Mission. A Caribean Contribution."
Baptist Quarterly 35:6 (1994), pp. 294-302.
According to Ward in his letter)w Ryland of 30 Aprili' 1817,p. 31.
This probably reflected the educational philosophy that Carey followed for his
sons as soon as they could read. They started learning Asiatic languages
and Latin from as .early as five years old. See Fuller's letter to David
Brown, Anglican chaplain in calcutta, dated 21 January, 1811, p. 18 (in
bound volume 3 of fuller's letters, BMS microfilm reel no.21). Carey's sons
spent up to ten years learning Latin. ~elix Carey had prodigious linguistic
skills, especially in Indian languages. Cf. Marshman' letter of 24 February_
1811 to Ryland.
.
Cf. the letter of Fuller to Carey, 15 May 1908, p. 2.
William Johns, M.D., F.L.S., F .H.S., ane Spirit of the Serampore System, as
it existed in 1812 and 1813; with strictures on some parts of 'Dr. Marshman's .
Statement relative to Serampore' [sic], in a Series of Letters to a Friend"
(London, 1828), in SeramporePamphlets, 1827-1828, bound volumes 6 and 10;
also BMS Archives microfilm reel no. 53.
,
Ibid., p. 52. Johns was a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in London
and during 1812-1813 functioned as "Acting Surgeon to the Danish Prison.'lrB
of War'" at SerllD)pore. He was the only missionary that was sent back \.0
Britain from Bengal; t',lat w~ at least in part due to Joshua Marshman's l"lishandling 0' Johns' c,."lC with the British authorities in Calcutta: see Carey to
Fuller, 25 March, 1813, and 5-12 M,ay 1813, p. 6. Johns was Marshman's most
severe detractor thereafter. Johns' strong animus against Joshua Marshman
and his family must be taken into account when one reads his allegations
against them. Cf. A. Christopher Smith, ~ritish Recruits for Serampore, 1800'
1825," Baptist Review of Theology, 2:2 (1992), pp. 13-14.
Eustace Carey, "Supplement to the Vindication of the Calcutta Baptist
Missionaries occasioned by Dr. Carey's'Thirty-Two Letters.' Dr. Marshman's
'Reply to the Rev. John Dyer,' and Mr. John Marshman's' Review',· London,
1831, pp. 112-113 [in bound vol. 12 of Serampore Controversy (pamphlets)]. On
Eustace Carey as the Trio's bete noire, see Smith, "British Recruits," BRT, 2:2
(1992), pp. 14-16, and Carey's letter to Ryl~d, dated 30 May 1816. William
Carey avowed in his letter to Fuller, dated 4 August, 1814 (p. 3), that he had
always sought to avoid treating Eustace as any kind of favourite at serampore.
This was hardly surprising because Ward and JCM worked together in the
Serampore Mission's print shop? Johns evidently quo~d from Marshman's 1828
·Statement Relative to Serampore," pp. 54-55. Inspite of this praise by his
father,JCM never took the official step to beconie a missionary. Marshman
senior's reference to JCM at the age of seventeen [1811] surely refers more
accurately to JCM seveQ or eight years later [in 1818 or 1819]? On Johns'
68.
69.
70.
71.
72.
73.
74.
75.
76.
- ,/- 77.
78.
43
strong sense of self-importance, cf. Carey's lettei to Ryland, dated May 30,
1816.
On "the Serampore Union;" see above, n. 32.
Johns, ibid., pp. 54-55. On the Trio~s procedure for admitting anyone to
membership of the Serampore Mission, from 1808' onwards, see the letter of
Carey and Marshman to D_ Templeton, dated 15 April, 1820, p. 3. This contrasted
with the Trio's posture towards t!he BMS as set forth in the letter that Carey
wrote to Fuller on 11 August, 1807: "We do, not think ourselves at liberty to
appoint our own children to be the Missionaries however well they may be
fitted for it. The most we think ourselves authorized to do is to recommend
them to the Society after we have made a proper trial of them" [sic] (p. 2). In
1806, Marshman had proposed that missioanry, children could become "Assistants
to the Mission, principally at out-stations, D lin a 'provisional basis and with
financial support from Serampore: .Marshman to Ryland, 25 May1806, p.17.
and 24 Februl,lry 1811, p. 12. Felix Carey was supported thus.
Ward to Rylruid, 30 April, 1817, pp. 29-32 [the letter was begun on 16 December,
1816 arid finished four months later, on 30 April, 1817].
'
In 1826, Yates alinlitted to the Trio that he and Eustace Carey had wronged
the Serampore Trio and their close colleagues: see Smith, "British Recruits,"
BRT, 2:2 (1992), p; 31, n. 91. However, he lapsed in 1827 and collaborated with
Eustace Carey in a renewed attack on them.
John C. Marshman, "Review of Two Pamphlets, by the Rev. John Dyer, and the
Rev. E. Carey and W. Yates;' in Twelve Letters to the Rev. John Foster:
Serampore, 1830, p. 64 (in The Serampore ControlJery, bound volume 10, and
BMS microf,lm reel 53). However, this appointment did not make JCM a BMS
missionary; it was only a formal arrangement internal to the Serampol'e Mission.
More light is needed to explaifl why Stephen Neill surmised that JCM probably
"was not an altogether easy man to deal with": Neill, The History of Christianity
in India 1707-1858, Cambridge University Press, 1985, p. 506,n. 62. Did Neill
conclude this simply from reading his large, two-volume, work on The Life and
Times ofCarey, Marshman, and Ward, embracing the History of the serampore
Mi88io;" (1859}?
- '
Ward to Fuller, 7 October, 1805, p. 4.
With a significant lack of accuracy, the DNB recorded that he "for twenty years
... held the position of a set:uiar bishop, providing for a great body of missionaries,
catechists, and native Christians, collecting for them large sums' of money,
while living, like his colleagues, on 200/. a year": 1893, vol. 36,p. 255. The
author of this article was G.C. Boase (presumably an Indian). Ever practical,
like his mother, John Marshman established the Christian village of Johnnagar,
one mile from Serampore; in 1826., This was to provide assitance to penurious
mission converts: was it they who named the village after after him? (Cf. the
letter from Christopher Anderson to John Marshman, 18 September 1829, in
Hugh Anderson. The Life and Letters of Chrlstopher Anderson, ,Edinburgh,
1854, p. 292. According to the DNB (1893, 36:255), he also "started a Christian
colony on 'a tract of land purchased in theSunderbunds." but without
'success.
Ward to Ryland, 30 April,1817, pp. 29-30; cf. JCM, Life and times ofCMW, vol.
1, p. 424. On Serampore's Benevolent Institution for the Instruction lif Indigent
Children' in Calcutta, see G. Smith, The Life of William Ca.rey, pp. 152f., and
Potts, Baptist Missionaries, pp. 127-129.
He earned inclusion in the British Dictionary ofNational Biography, Sidney Lee
(ed.), London;· 1893, vol. 36, p., 255, which includes an exhaustive list of his
works.'
,
.
.
George Howells and A.C. Underwood, The Story of Seramporeand Its College,
Serampore, 1918, p. 30. Cf. DNB, 1893, 36: p. 255.
44
79. N.L. Basak, History of Vernacular Education in Bengal (1800-1854): A Reuiew
of the Early Trends and Experiments, Calcutta: Bharati Book Stall, 1974, p. 83.
K. Sengupta observes that although JCM was the editor, "the. main editorial
work was'probably done by the Indians": The Christian Missionaries in Bengal,
1793-1833, Calcutta, 1971, p. 132. JCM was thus more of a managing editor.
Cf. John D.W. Watts, "Baptists and the Transforqtation of Culture: A Case
Study from the Career ofWilliam Carey," Euangelical Reukw of Theology, 17:3
(1993), p. 335.
BO. Cf. [anon.], "Memoir of John C. Marsluruin," Journal of the RC1JIal Asiatic Society
of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 10 (new series), 1878. pp. xi-xii.
81. Boase, in Dictionary of National Biography, London, 1893, vol. 136, p. 255.
82. He produced various historical treatises on India, from the earnest period until
after the East India Company's rule, including The History of India (1842, and
3 volumes in 1863-67). According to N.L. Basak, "the chief value of these historical
compilations lay in their utility as source books for future authors in the
vernacular:' Marshman's Outline of the History of Bengal (1849) was translated
into Bengali in 1840 and 1848, as well as by the Rev. John Wenger in 1853.
These were popular in the schools of Bengal for many years [Basak, ibid., p. 83].
83. Neill, ibid., p. 205.
84. Eustace Carey's memoir of his uncle (1837) was narrowly conceived; iJ:l. no way
was it missiologically analytical. All the major biographies of Carey and his
cohort (by George Smith, 1885, and S. Pearce Carey, 1923) have depended .
substantially on JCM's historiographical foundation. To move beyond that, one
needs. to delve deeply into the 'archival treasure trove of the BMS, and the
associated collections.
. 85. Clyde Manschreck, Melanchthon, The .Quiet Reformer, pp. 13-19,29,33,346C.
Melanchthon ib interpreted by Manschreck as a blend between the Renaissance .
and the Reformation: two historical movements that have never been reconciled
in Protestantism. He was an enigmatic figure who "did not fit into either one
of the main streams of Protestant culture" (p. 15). The Oxfam Dictionary of the
Christian Church, F.L. Cross (p. 15). 2nd edn., London: Oxford University Press,
1974, p. 898. According to Hilderbrandt, Melanchthon waS the only humanist
with whom Luther came to terms. On "the intricate problem of the friendship
between Luther and Melanchthon" and the concessions that Melanchthon ma!ie
to "elements outside the 'inner circle' oC the eVangelical Caith," cC. Hilderbrandt,
Melanchthon: Alien or Ally?, 1946: p. xii. and'pcissim: also. cf. n. 7 above. 1 am
indebted to the specialist oJ!. Melachthon, Dr. TimothyWengert, church historian
at the Lutheran Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, for bringing Manschreck's
book to my attention and for encouraging me to consider Melanchthon's timeless
significance further. Of course, JCM was no' systematic theologian, but he does.
seem to have been characterized by a psycho-socio-cultural disposition and
posture that find parallels in Melanchthon.
86. Marshman wrote to Fuller on 17 December, 1808, quoting from Ward's journal
"anote respecting me" which might have been quite injurious, viz., that "he
[Marshman] is sometimes seized with a frenzy and then a falling bubble is. a
falling world, and next day it is all over." However, Marshman ostensibly took
it in his stride, avowing: "There is no man on earth whom I love better than
Bro.W. - We have never clashed for an hour.or·For more of Ward's penetrating'
analysis of Marshman's personal style, see Ward to Fuller, 7 October, 1805, p.
4.
87. In contrast to his pace-setting mission promotion in Britain in the 1790s, Carey
le~ it to MlIl"8hman anci Ward, in Bengal from the 1800s onwards, to develop
mission strategy for "taking all Asia for Christ"; cf.n. 43 above. J. Hudson
Taylor (CIM) was much more of aIi international mission strategist'and public
statesman than Carey ever w a s . '

The Protégé of Erasmus and Luther in Heroic Serampore, 1812-1855

Transcription

Similar documents

Fifth Annual Moving Forward Together Secondary Transition Fair

INCLUSION IN ACTION GROUP EVS PROJECT 10.07.2010

CPARTS - I`m Ally Schweitzer

Erasmus+ Programme

Fred Unleashed

winter surprise

Informator ECTS - Wyższa Szkoła Ekonomiczna w Białymstoku

ACCOMMODATION Wyższa Szkoła Języków Obcych w Szczecinie

More points - Radius Travel

Obsequies Martin Luther King Jr.